


A Shelby Shave

by ConvenientAlias



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Background Ada Shelby/Freddie Thorne, Gen, M/M, Morning After, Power Dynamics, Pre-Season/Series 02, Shaving, Unresolved Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2020-06-26 06:45:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19762738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConvenientAlias/pseuds/ConvenientAlias
Summary: After Freddie spends the night in Tommy's bed, Tommy won't let him leave without a proper shave.





	A Shelby Shave

Freddie wakes up in Tommy’s bed with a killer headache. Okay, he thinks. Last night they went a little overboard. But he checks his clothes and they’re all on, so at least they didn’t end up fucking. Not this time.

He’s married to Ada now so what he had with Tommy has to be in the past. At least that part.

Tommy doesn’t stir, so he ought to be asleep, but when Freddie looks over at him, those cold eyes are open. They are looking at the wall across from them, bureau and green wallpaper. But when Freddie sits up, he does too, and he kills the embers of the smoking opium pipe. The smell remains, though, the only sign of vulnerability in the whole spotless room—apart from Freddie’s presence in his bed, clothes mussed and wrinkled, and a small bruise forming on his forehead, which Freddie is responsible for also.

It occurs to Freddie, not for the first time, that he is a blotch on Tommy’s neat and orderly life. Everyone and everything else in Tommy’s life behaves, obeys. But he can’t get rid of his nightmares, and he can’t make Freddie toe the line.

“About time you woke up,” Tommy says, “I would have had to wake you soon. It’s almost nine.” He gets out of bed without so much as a stretch. “You can borrow some of my clothes if you promise to return them.”

But as embarrassing as it will be to return to Ada mussed and bruised the morning after he said he was going to go talk to her brother and work out their quarrel (their current quarrel, they’re always quarreling over something), it would be much worse to return in her brother’s clothing. What would she think then? She knows—though they don’t discuss it often—that during the war, he and Tommy were intimate. And although she hates him fighting with Tommy, she’s much more uncomfortable with what else could arise when they’re on good terms. Worried he’ll start being more interested in Tommy than her, or get entangled with the Peaky Blinders by the force of Tommy’s willpower. She always hates the way Tommy looks at him, cool and considering, as if he’s wondering what to do with Freddie—what use he can find for him, or whether he ought to kill him, or whether he ought to fuck him.

Come to think of it, Freddie kind of hates the way Tommy looks at him too.

Anyways. He can’t borrow Tommy’s clothes because everyone will know they’re Tommy’s—they’re distinct, classy, tailored to fit. And if he’s to keep his reputation separate from that of the Peaky Blinders (always a struggle), he can’t afford those kinds of rumors.

“No, I don’t need anything of yours. I’ll just be on my way.”

But Tommy, who has stripped off his own shirt and trousers while Freddie was thinking it over, is half naked and squarely between Freddie and the door, and looking far too judgmental for a man in his current state of undress.

“You’ll comb your hair, at least,” he says. “And shave, I hope. You look as if you just got out of prison again with that beard.”

“Sometimes I let it grow out. Not everyone’s as posh as you. Though I know you have an appearance to uphold.”

“I do, and so does my sister. I won’t let my brother in law walk the streets looking like a mess. Sit down, I’ll deal with you in a moment.”

“Oh, you’ll deal with me.”

Tommy raises his eyebrows. “I will.” He’s pulling on a new pair of trousers, and within minutes he has on a new shirt, too. He pulls up his suspenders, fetches himself a vest… and in short, is within minutes the man who leads the Peaky Blinders on the streets, except for hat and jacket, which he leaves aside for the moment.

Freddie isn’t sure why he’s putting up with this, why he’s still sitting here having barely brushed his own clothes over to straighten them up a bit. He doesn’t like Tommy’s attitude, brisk and leisurely at the same time, so sure Freddie will stick around for Tommy to “deal with” him. He’s not something for Tommy to deal with—that’s what he’d like to say. But Tommy’s proved time and again that’s not true. He’s dealt with keeping Freddie out of the hands of the law, dealt with getting Ada and Freddie married, dealt with Freddie’s money troubles at times (despite Freddie’s protestations) and, reaching further back, dealt with Freddie’s anxieties and fears during the war and in the early period after. Tommy’s well versed in how to deal with him, even if it sticks in Freddie’s craw and sometimes makes him want to do things like—well, like punch him in the face like he did last night.

“Up,” Tommy says, and Freddie rises, and is led off to the bathroom. There’s a mirror there—it’s only a little cracked—soap, razors. Freddie reaches for the grooming scissors but Tommy clicks his tongue and snatches them away.

“How about you go to Ada looking neat for once? That would probably make her happy.”

Freddie would retort that Ada loves his beard, but Tommy’s already wetting his hands and soaping them up. He spreads the soap on Freddie’s cheeks and neck, offers him a towel to hold under his chin, and then picks up one of the razor blades.

“I can shave myself.”

“I know.” Tommy doesn’t quite smile. “Turn towards me. Hold still.”

Freddie holds still. The blade skims over his cheeks, his chin, his neck. He isn’t worried that Tommy will cut him—he knows he won’t. He’s a little more nervous about Tommy’s hand on the back of his neck, sort of a bracing grip, and about the careful way Tommy looks at him.

Of course he knows all that about looking neat for Ada is kind of bullshit. Tommy does wish Freddie would look a little more… Shelby, but it’s not for Ada’s sake. It’s because he married into the Shelby family (even if Ada willingly calls herself a Thorne) and Tommy wishes he’d act like it.

And because he gets off on making people do what he wants. Especially people he knows as well as Freddie, cares about as much as Freddie. Call it a nurturing instinct, call it him being a controlling bastard. He likes being able to make Freddie look nice, groomed. He also likes being able to hold a knife to Freddie’s neck, knowing Freddie won’t even mind, not really.

“There.” Tommy pats off Freddie’s face with the towel.

Freddie rinses his face anyways, discontent to let Tommy have the last word in his appearance. And runs a comb available through his hair after all. He doesn’t like the way Tommy looks at that, either—probably wishes he could chop it shorter, in more of a Shelby kind of way. Wouldn’t care if it looked hideous so long as he could mark his territory.

“Do I meet your standards now?”

Tommy raises his eyebrows. “Ask Ada what she thinks. I’m not your wife.”

Ha bloody ha.

_Ada_ , when he gets home, is full of questions. About why the fuck he was out all night, whether he and Tommy have settled things, and how he ended up letting Tommy shave his beard.

“Is it that obvious?” he asks.

“Yeah,” she says. “It’s that obvious. You’d never do it on your own, not that short.”

“And it’s not at all attractive?” he asks, teasing.

She scoffs. “I’m not interested in fucking my brother. I told you to settle things with him, not crawl into bed with him.” She probably only means that metaphorically, not literally—Freddie hasn’t told her _that_ much about last night.

“Ada, I didn’t…”

“It’s fine. I should probably take it up with him, not you.” Ada sighs. “Anyways. At least you two aren’t out to kill each other anymore.”

Freddie wants to say that’s an exaggeration and he and Tommy were never out to kill each other in the first place, never have been, but he’s uncomfortably aware that he’d be lying a little—worse, he’d be lying more about his own intentions than Tommy’s. Tommy never has tried to kill Freddie, not really, but Freddie… Freddie has had times.

And even if he and Tommy are on good terms now, he knows those times will come again. Maybe a bit quicker than not—Tommy shaving him has made him feel restless, because it’s probably left Tommy feeling smug. Freddie hates to let Tommy feel smug.

(Except sometimes, after a fight when they’re side by side, when they’re smug together about a victory… but not about something like this, anyway.)

When he sees Tommy next it’s a few days later and his stubble is back in force, and Tommy shakes his head disapprovingly, but there’s company around, hostile company, so neither of them brings the subject up.

**Author's Note:**

> I just watched season one of Peaky Blinders; haven't really gotten any further yet. (Though I know Freddie dies, sadly.) Wanted to write a fic about Freddie and Tommy, so I looked through a list of random prompts and found shaving. I was like... hm.  
> Anyways I just live for an AU where Freddie and Ada and Tommy are all living semi-peacefully but not really peacefully in Birmingham and Tommy keeps on trying to control Freddie and Ada's lives bc he's the head of the family and all that bullshit and Ada and Freddie are like "fuck off" but also reluctantly admit that he's in charge but also kind of want him to fuck off. Just, you know. Things.  
> With lots of sexual tension!


End file.
